


Stroma

by acatalepsy



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Autistic Character, Character Study, Drabble, Empath Will Graham, Gen, Gratuitous Discussion of Eyeballs, Set somewhere during season 1, sensory issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 10:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17620922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acatalepsy/pseuds/acatalepsy
Summary: Will Graham has a complicated relationship with eye contact.





	Stroma

**Author's Note:**

> i try to describe what i believe to be a visual form of semantic satiation here so hopefully that paragraph isn't too weird. i swear this is a thing. if i make eye contact w/ people for more than a few seconds at a time their faces literally look alien to me.
> 
> also — hannibal fic! in 2019!  
> i can't believe myself either.
> 
> thanks to eissibee for being my beta <3

_“Eyes are distracting. You see too much. You don't see enough …”_

Will Graham has a complicated relationship with eye contact.

When a hint of perfume on the air can leave him dizzy, reeling with information, and a single trip to the convenience store is enough for him to be battling a migraine for hours afterward it’s only expected. Just the thought of public transport makes him nauseous.

At risk of sounding like the ‘sociopath’ people often make him out to be he prefers eyeballs when they’re being dissected by Beverly in thin slivers on the forensics table or blown up large on his lecture theatre’s projection screen. Things are just easier that way.

Sometimes he dreams of them — evidently the stress of constant observation taking a toll on his unconscious mind. The leering panopticon that plagues his inner sight isn’t just the fault of Jack Crawford and the BAU, condescending psychiatrists or nosey tabloid hacks, though. It would be foolish to deny how it’s also, in part, a burden of his own creation. He tends to attract a certain kind of attention, being what he is — but with visibility comes saving lives, or at least that’s how he justifies it.

During fitful nights images rise up before him, a silent clip show of hundreds of eyes, microscopic in detail, both beautiful and obscene. Pupils dilate and stroma contract, pigmented fibrovascular tissue within the iris branching out, tiny strands of fibre which knit together, cloy, fine gossamer threads at once delicate and alien.

Like the double sided glass that lines the walls of the bureau’s interrogation rooms eyes tend to be unwitting windows; people unaware that their innermost thoughts are on display for anyone to see — if they know how to look, which in fairness they often don’t. Being in possession of his … ‘unique gift’ Will has adopted a very specific brand of paranoia. Sometimes his thoughts are so vivid that he’s sure other people can hear them. Still, while the idea of other people looking in is unnerving, looking out is always worse. It’s overwhelming. Eye contact reveals too much. It feels wrong. It’s … violating. Will doesn’t make a habit of it.

When he does, however, his hand forced by, God forbid, social niceties or called for by (he would say well-meaning) manipulation, the face of the person before him quickly becomes inhuman, monstrous — like the imprints left upon your gaze after staring into too bright light. His synapses stall out, fatigued, leaving his brain waterlogged, transforming the person before him into an inverted monstrosity — a beast. Even the most innocuous of mankind are left grotesque.

Hannibal Lecter, however —

When he looks at Hannibal none of the usual the anxiety or discomfort sets in. No excess of information. No sensory overload. Nothing. Looking back at him from across his office all he sees is a man — and at a glimpse that’s all he is. 

If one were to have keen observational skills, though, they’d notice the way his eyes are like shallow pools. They betray nothing but superficialities, only reflect back within dark brown irises only so much as you will yourself to see — and the more you look the more you realise the rest of him is like this too, a thin, cultivated veneer — a persona woven like a carefully constructed mask, brought together with the same precision and care seen in the dishes that crowd the tables of his many extravagant dinner parties.

Perhaps this should deter Will. It doesn’t.

An oasis in a desert of competing stimuli, Hannibal’s illusory nature calms him — intrigues him even. A small fear does linger though, that if he were to look for long enough past the expansion and contraction of his pupils Hannibal’s eyes might reveal sequestered away just beneath the surface some sort of hidden depths. In this way the silence in his head is in equal parts cause for alarm as it is much needed respite — like when one is out hunting in the woods at night and finds themselves stumbling upon the disquieting realisation that at some point the crickets have stopped chirping.

The topic is brought up early on in their therapy sessions.

“You usually struggle to make eye contact with others.”

A huff of humourless laughter. “As it’s been made abundantly clear to me. You’ve broached this topic before. Does it … _offend_ you?”

Hannibal tilts his head to the side, imploring. His voice is steady — level and contemplative. “Some, including myself, would say your aversion is only rational. Looking into the eyes of another serves a social function. We developed an evolutionary trait in order for us to better gather information about our peers and to gauge their motives. For you such a survival mechanism would be largely redundant.”

“I don’t need eye contact to see people for what they are.”

“And yet you sit across from me, perfectly capable. What might we conclude from that?”

And for once the silence shifts, a glint of light flits across the surface of the pool, and for a split second Hannibal's expression morphs to become one Will is deeply familiar with from upon the many faces of prying psychiatrists. His gaze betrays a single-minded, bordering sickening curiosity.

“I thought you were supposed to be _my_ psychiatrist.”

“Are we not simply having conversations, Will?”

He hums, smile tight.

“Humour me.”

Hannibal leans forward and Will holds his gaze. Steady.

“I can look at you, Doctor Lecter, but I’m not entirely sure that I see you.”

 


End file.
